Kapala combines traditional and contemporary Hawaiian music with blues, country, jazz, reggae, rock, and swing to create “Hawaiian music with a groove” – an exciting and innovative sound that the San Francisco Chronicle website describes as “a little country, a splash of soulful jazz, and pinches of just about everything else, presented with an audacious yet sophisticated panache.” The Honolulu-based band features Kimo Artis and Lopaka Ho’opi’i on vocals, Zanuck Lindsey on guitar and vocals, Kai Artis on guitar, Richard Heirakuji on bass, and Adj Larioza on percussion. “One day we all got together and something just clicked,” Kimo says. “We had the same dream of where we wanted to take music and it just felt right.”

The Hawaiian word kapala means imprint or stamp – the ohe kapala is the stamp made from ohe, or bamboo, used to imprint designs on the bark cloth known as kappa. The band has left their imprint on the contemporary music scene with three fine albums, including last year’s Legacy, nominated for the Na Hoku Hanohano award, and four Akademia Music Awards for Excellence in Songwriting. These talented musicians have lent their skills to several of Hawaii’s finest groups, and since forming Kapala seven years ago, they’ve been creating a legacy of bold and beautiful original music steeped in Hawaiian tradition.

Berkeley’s own Patrick Landeza, Hawaiian slack key guitarist extraordinaire, returns to the Freight fresh on the heels of receiving Hawaiian music’s highest honor, the Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Slack Key Album of the Year. He is the first musician based on the mainland to win this award, informally known as the Hawaiian Grammy. A musician, composer, and producer, Patrick is a leading exponent of ki ho’alu, the Hawaiian slack key guitar style that Hawaiian cowboys developed in the 19th century when they loosened – or “slacked” – their guitar strings for a lower, more resonant sound. Born and raised in Berkeley to Hawaii-born parents, Patrick studied slack key from masters like George Kuo, Ray Kane, and Sonny Chillingworth. Patrick is not only one of the top slack key performers in the world, he is also a musical bridge between Hawaii and California – he plays, in his words, “traditional Hawaiian music with a Berkeley twist.” He first played at the Freight on Open Mic Nights, and now he says, “The Freight is and always will be my home.” The feeling is mutual.